sort of people who complain of his conduct,-Lysippus does not pay his debts.

It is no difficult matter to account for a conduct so seemingly incompatible with itself. There is greatness in being generous, and there is only simple justice in his. satisfying his creditors. Generosity is the part of a soul raised above the vulgar. There is in it something of what we admire in heroes, and praise with a degree of rapture. Justice, on the contrary, is a mere mechanic virtue, only fit for tradesmen, and what is practised by every broker in 'Change Alley.1

In paying his debts a man barely does his duty, and it is an action attended with no sort of glory. Should Lysippus satisfy his creditors, who would be at the pains of telling it to the world? Generosity is a virtue of a very different complexion. It is raised above duty, and, from its elevation, attracts the attention and the praises of us little mortals below.

In this manner do men generally reason upon justice and generosity. The first is despised, though a virtue essential to the good of society; and the other attracts our esteem, which too frequently proceeds from an impetuosity of temper, rather directed by vanity than reason. Lysippus is told that his banker asks a debt of forty pounds, and that a distressed acquaintance petitions for the same sum. He gives it without hesitating to the latter; for he demands as a favour what the former requires as a debt.

Mankind in general are not sufficiently acquainted with the import of the word justice: it is commonly believed to consist only in a performance of those duties to which the laws of society can oblige us. This, I allow, is sometimes the import of the word, and in this sense justice is distinguished from equity; but there is a justice still more extensive, and which can be shown to embrace all the virtues united.

Justice may be defined [as], that virtue which impels us to give to every person what is his due. In this extended sense of the word, it comprehends the practice of every

1 Jonathan's Coffee House, the resort of the stock-brokers, stood here, and so originated the Stock Exchange of our day.-ED.

virtue which reason prescribes, or society should expect. Our duty to our Maker, to each other, and to ourselves, are fully answered, if we give them what we owe them. Thus justice, properly speaking, is the only virtue; and all the rest have their origin in it.

The qualities of candour, fortitude, charity, and generosity, for instance, are not, in their own nature, virtues; and if ever they deserve the title, it is owing only to justice, which impels and directs them. Without such a moderator, candour might become indiscretion, fortitude obstinacy, charity imprudence, and generosity mistaken profusion.

A disinterested action, if it be not conducted by justice, is at best indifferent in its nature, and not unfrequently even turns to vice. The expenses of society, of presents, of entertainments, and the other helps to cheerfulness, are actions merely indifferent, when not repugnant to a better method of disposing of our superfluities; but they become vicious when they obstruct or exhaust our abilities from a more virtuous disposition of our circumstances.

True generosity is a duty as indispensably necessary as those imposed upon us by law. It is a rule imposed upon us by reason, which should be the sovereign law of a rational being. But this generosity does not consist in obeying every impulse of humanity, in following blind passion for our guide, and impairing our circumstances by present benefactions, so as to render us incapable of future ones.

Misers are generally characterized as men without honour, or without humanity, who live only to accumulate, and to this passion sacrifice every other happiness. They have been described as madmen, who, in the midst of abundance, banish every pleasure, and make, from imaginary wants, real necessities. But few, very few, correspond to this exaggerated picture; and perhaps there is not one in whom all these circumstances are found united. Instead of this, we find the sober and the industrious branded by the vain and the idle with this odious appellation; men who, by frugality and labour, raise themselves above their equals, and contribute their share of industry to the common stock.

Whatever the vain or the ignorant may say, well were it for society had we more of these characters amongst us. In general, these close men are found at last the true benefactors of society. With an avaricious man we seldom lose in our dealings; but too frequently in our commerce with prodigality.

A French priest, whose name was Godinot, went for a long time by the name of the Griper. He refused to relieve the most apparent wretchedness, and, by a skilful management of his vineyard, had the good fortune to acquire immense sums of money. The inhabitants of Rheims, who were his fellow-citizens, detested him; and the populace, who seldom love a miser, wherever he went followed him with shouts of contempt. He still, however, continued his former simplicity of life, his amazing and unremitted frugality. He had long perceived the wants of the poor in the city, particularly in having no water but what they were obliged to buy at an advanced price; wherefore, that whole fortune which he had been amassing, he laid out in an aqueduct; by which he did the poor more useful and lasting service, than if he had distributed his whole income in charity every day at his door.1

Among men long conversant with books, we too frequently find those misplaced virtues of which I have been now complaining. We find the studious animated with a strong passion for the great virtues, as they are mistakenly called, and utterly forgetful of the ordinary ones. The declamations of philosophy are generally rather exhausted on those supererogatory duties, than on such as are indispensably necessary. A man, therefore, who has taken his ideas of mankind from study alone, generally comes into the world with a heart melting at every fictitious distress. Thus he is induced, by misplaced liberality, to put himself into the indigent circumstances of the person he relieves.

I shall conclude this paper with the advice of one of the ancients, to a young man whom he saw giving away all his substance to pretended distress. "It is possible

1 The curious defence of misers here attempted Goldsmith repeats, in substance, in No. V., “ On Political Frugality” (p. 378), and elsewhere. -ED.

that the person you relieve may be an honest man; and I know that you who relieve him are such. You see, then, by your generosity, you rob a man who is certainly deserving, to bestow it on one who may possibly be a rogue; and, while you are unjust in rewarding uncertain merit, you are doubly guilty by stripping yourself.”1

ON WIT.

BY VOLTAIRE.2

WIT seems to be one of those undetermined sounds to which we affix scarce any precise idea. It is something more than judgment, genius, taste, talent, penetration, grace, delicacy, and yet it partakes somewhat of each. It may be properly defined ingenious reason. It is one of those general terms which always want another word to determine their signification; and when we hear such a work praised for being witty, such a man applauded for wit, it is but just to ask of what sort.

Thus Corneille with sublimity, and Boileau with exactness; Fontaine with simplicity, and Bruyere by being natural, are reckoned men of wit, yet each differs from the other; and still more from some philosophers who may be accounted witty men, and join sagacity to imagination. They who despise the genius of Aristotle (instead of being contented with rejecting his Physics only, which cannot be good, as he had but few experiments to direct them) will be much surprised to find in his rhetoric the manner of saying things wittily. He informs us there, that the art does not consist in simply using the proper term, which offers to the imagination nothing new. We ought, says he, rather to employ a metaphor, or a figure, the sense of which must be clear, and the expression energetic.

1 Goldsmith enforces the lesson of this paper in the letter to his brother Henry dated [Feb., 1759]: see Letters, in v. i.- Ed.

2 An abridgment of the article "Esprit" in Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary.'-ED.

Of this he gives several examples, and, among others, the expression of Pericles, in talking of a battle in which the most beautiful of the youth of Athens were slain, "The year has been deprived of its spring." He adds, that the thought also should have the grace of novelty. The person who first, to express how pleasures were generally attended with pain, made use of the simile of roses being gathered among thorns, had wit. But it is otherwise with those who repeat it after him.

But a metaphor is not always the wittiest manner of expressing a thing with spirit, a great deal consists in an unexpected turn, in leaving us to understand without trouble, a part of the poet's meaning. This is so much the more pleasing, as it seems an indirect compliment to the reader, and shows his wit as well as that of the poet. Allusion, allegory, comparison, each furnishes an extensive field of ingenuity; history, fable, and the effects of nature, furnish matter to a well-regulated imagination, that can never be exhausted.

Let us then consider in what places wit should be admitted. It seems pretty manifest, that, in works of dignity, it should be used with caution, as it is only, at best, an ornament. The great art is in the proper timing this ornament. A fine thought, a just and elegant comparison, are faults, when reason only, or when passion should speak, and particularly where the subject is interesting. Using it in such circumstances as these, should not be called false wit (as Addison commonly expresses it); but wit displaced, and every misplaced beauty is rather a defect. This is a fault in which Virgil never transgresses, and with which Tasso may be sometimes reproached, all admirable as he is at other times. This error generally arises from an author's exuberance; filled with ideas of different kinds, he is desirous of showing himself when he ought only to exhibit his personages. The best method of knowing the true use to be made of wit is, by reading the small number of good works both in the learned languages and in our own.

False wit, as I have already hinted, is very different from displaced wit. This is not only a false thought, but is generally far-fetched also. A man of some wit, who